411’s Total Divas Report 2.2.16

Welcome to Total Divas, the show so exciting that it wasn’t reviewed last week because I totally forgot that it existed.

We open at the home of Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart and Ellie “The Anvil” Neidhart, where their daughter Nattie is planning a party for TJ Wilson, who is still laid up with his broken neck. Hopefully there’s not a bouncy house. The idea behind the party is that it will be a surprise and allow him see his all of his friends who he has been missing since he’s off the road. Jim the Anvil suggests that they hire some “dancing girls” for the event, and Nattie fires off a catty line about the Funkadactyls being available. I guess this is how Total Divas celebrates Black History Month.

The WWE crew arrives at an event at an unspecified location, and up rolls EVA MARIE~!, who is making her return to Monday Night Raw. I’m sure that you remember all of those classic Eva moments that have been featured on Raw over the course of the past six months or so, and this is where they all began. All Red Everything reminds us that, the last time she was here, she had a massive fight with half of the women’s locker room. If I remember correctly, it was one of those odd situations where Eva was supposed to be the heel even though she was probably one of the more reasonable people involved in the dispute.

Speaking of being reasonable, Eva sits down with the Bellas to try to clear the air. Brie explains that the sisters were upset last season because there were a lot of stories floating around backstage and they would hear different things that Eva either was or wasn’t saying about them. All of this gossip made them angry. Gee, Brie, it’s a shame that there’s nothing that you could have proactively done to rectify that situation . . . like talking to Eva as any mature, rational adult would do. Anyway, after about fifteen seconds, they’re all friends again, and they solidify their friendships by following each other on their various social media accounts.

Rosa Mendes, Nattie, and Alicia Fox are chatting elsewhere, and they invite R-Truth to TJ’s party, which Nattie explains is being held because TJ is depressed. Truth is concerned about attending because he’s afraid of cats. He claims that – and I am not exaggerating any of this – when he was younger, he attempted to feed a “herd of cats” some “chicken bones” and that it wound up with the herd attacking him. In other words, he basically cuts a goofy R-Truth comedy promo from Monday Night Raw on what is supposed to be a “reality” television show.

Elsewhere, creepy Talent Relations Mark gathers the majority of the women’s division for a “mandatory meeting.” He thanks them for all of their work at Summerslam and then surprises them with . . . a woman. I wouldn’t reward a bunch of heterosexual girls by buying them a hooker for them, but, hey, I’m not a corporate executive like Mark, so maybe he knows better than m . . . oh, wait, she’s not a hooker. Her name is Mandy Rose, and Mark reports that she’s signed a five year contract with the company and will be going on the road immediately.

“You’re wrestling?” Paige asks. “We know exactly what we’re doing,” Mark says. Yeah, this from the company that subjected me to Brodus Clay matches for three years.

After a commercial break, Paige explains that she and Mandy have history from Tough Enough, where she was a judge and rather harsh on Mandy as a contestant. I watched zero Tough Enough this past season, so I’ll take her word for it. Before much more can happen, Mork and Mindy Mark and Mandy leave the room, and Eva decides that she’s got a new best friend. Mandy asks Eva for advice about being a professional wrestler, and they engage in some of the most vapid giggling I have heard in my life. Eva suggests that they work together and get some “hot ass tag moves.” You do that . . . I suggest trying the Meltzer Driver.

Unfortunately, Eva Marie did not give Mandy the best advice that she could have, which is find a marijuana-loving ROH alumnus who was part of WWE in the mid-200s to train you in a dingy-looking sex cave in southern California. That was, of course, the greatest thing that ever happened to Eva’s career.

Once Raw wraps up, Creepy Talent Relations Mark pulls aside the Bellas and tells the sisters that there’s a “national food company” that wants the twins to do some publicity work for them. Brie is hesitant because of her “beliefs.” The beliefs in question aren’t specified, though long-time viewers of the show will be able to infer that it’s because she’s a hippie. They twins bicker about whether they’re going to do the work, and this culminates in Brie calling Nikki a “cheeseburger head.” She then gets a look on her face which leads me to believe that she thinks this is the greatest insult since “jerk store.”

Back at Casa de Neidhart, TJ is watching wrestling, which concerns Nattie because she’s afraid that a steady diet of WWE will result in him becoming even further depressed. I certainly know what she means by that, but is that really the message that this company should delivering about its own product?

In Phoenix, the Bellas discuss their potential endorsement some more. Nikki tries to sell Brie on the idea of promoting animal products sexily rubbing eggs on herself. No, seriously. This goes on for entirely too long and is clearly an excuse to get a bunch of cheesecake images of Nikki on scream. Brie pretends that she’s got an idea to make the endorsement work for her, and then she grabs a garden hose and spritzes Nikki with it. As I said, cheesecake.

This is getting sad. Can we have something a little bit more fun?

Ahhhhh, much better.

In Tampa, we’re making final preparations for TJ’s party, which includes putting away all of the cats. Cesaro (who Nattie refers to as “Claudio”) shows up, and we have problems with cats escaping . . . and then some chicken wings catch on fire. It’s like they’re trying to cram every sitcom trope imaginable into this storyline.

For the first time in a long time, we travel to John Cena’s Floridian Fortress of Solitude, where Nikki is getting ready to unload her latest round of personal problems on to Cena. She complains about Brie not wanting to work with her on their new prospective project. “Doesn’t she realize that her decisions affect me?” Nikki whines. I feel like this is the seventieth time that I have watched John Cena and Nikki Bella have this exact same conversation. They decide that Nikki will see if the company will allow her to do the endorsement without Brie, but that’s not actually followed up on. Nikki asks Cena why she always has such good advice for him. Here’s your answer, Nikki: It’s because he’s the promotion’s top babyface and they want him to be portrayed as well as humanly possible on this show, so he’s scripted to be the greatest human being imaginable.

TJ Wilson walks into his home unexpectedly, ruining the surprise party because none of the guests (except for Cesaro) are there yet. Nattie is, once again, concerned about the possibility that her husband will sit around watching WWE. Geez, I know that the product hasn’t been the greatest lately, but I didn’t think the talent would be this critical of it on camera. Big E Langston shows up, and Nattie’s sister Jen E immediately goes after him, calling back to an episode from last season in which Nattie tried to hook the two of them up. R-Truth and Kofi Kingston are the next guests, with Truth carrying a gigantic bunch of balloons like he’s headed to a three year old’s birthday party and Kofi carrying . . . his three year old, actually. Unfortunately, Kofi’s son releases one of the Neidhart cats, which immediately causes Truth to jump up on the kitchen counter. Nattie puts the felines away, and Truth decides to remedy the situation by building a massive rampart out of chairs and twine in front of Nattie’s bedroom door. Again, this show has officially transitioned to being a sitcom.

Now we shoot over to Richmond, Virginia, where a WWE show has wrapped up and Creepy Talent Relations Mark as decreed that Paige, Alicia Fox, Rosa Mendes, Eva Marie, and Mandy Rose are going to ride together to the next city. During a rest stop, Eva Marie continues the apology tour that she began with the Bellas, attempting to clear the air with Paige. Paige, showing far more self-awareness than anybody ever has on this show, realizes that she was partially in the wrong and apologizes to Eva Marie. Holy cow, adult behavior in the Divas locker room! And from Paige of all people! Amazing!

Nattie and TJ’s party is still going strong, as Big E and Cesaro google the proper name for a group of cats. (It’s a “clowder,” in case you were curious.) While eating some snacks, Truth asks TJ if he is “all right mentally,” because Nattie told him that Wilson was depressed. When R-Truth is questioning your mental health, you know you’ve got problems. This causes TJ to confront Nattie, who he lectures while she’s sitting on Truth’s cat barricade. TJ is angry because he doesn’t want his friends to come over and see him out of pity because they think he’s some pathetic, WWE-watching sad sack. I never thought that a wrestler would be a closet wrestling fan.

We watch some commercials, and, when we get back, Nattie is crying to Truth about the fact that TJ is upset with her. She says that she never said TJ was depressed, and Killings immediately calls bullshit on her, because, in fact, she used that exact word with him earlier in the show. Truth gives Nattie two pieces of advice: 1) she might think that things are bad for her husband now, but she forgets that he gets to spend every day with his best friend, i.e. Nattie and 2) men and women approach situations like this differently, and TJ chilling out and wanting to take things slowly doesn’t mean that he’s withdrawn or upset. In other words, in the course of about forty minutes, Truth went from being a buffoonish cartoon character to being John Cena, Jr., dispenser of sage wisdom. Talk about your uneven characterization.

It’s back to the WWE Diva Ride Along, where the girls are talking to each other about what disgusts them. Page says that she doesn’t like boogers and that Nattie always seems to have issues with them. What is it with this show and trying to make Nattie out as the most disgusting person alive? Moving along, Eva and Paige mention that they have smoothed over their past differences, leading Mandy to ask, “What past differences?” Unfortunately, this sets off Alicia Fox, who, instead of talking apologies with Eva Marie, lists every problem that she has ever had with Eva. The way that she so heavily unloads on poor Eva for such a long period of time with minimal prompting makes her come off as though she’s either schizophrenic or super-drunk. Eva, to her credit, just sits back and takes it because a small automobile like this isn’t exactly the appropriate place for a knockdown, drag out.

Brie Bella has a meeting with Kristen and Jennifer, her partners in “Experience Local,” Brie’s new business venture that debuted on the show two weeks ago and was so poorly explained that it may as well have been a convoluted TNA gimmick match. They actually do a better job of putting across the concept for the business here, indicating that it’s meant to publicize local Phoenix businesses to visiting out-of-towners. Before the Experience Local meeting can get going, Nikki breaks in on it . . . not to participate, but to foist upon Brie meaningless platitudes about how much she loves and supports her sister, putting their differences about the failed endorsement deal behind them. Nikki then goes off on an unprompted and unrelated diatribe about how she wants to be a wrestler who transcends wrestling, a female version of the Rock. Then she remembers who she’s dating and quickly lumps John Cena into the same category as the Rock, saying that she wants to be a female version of him, too. Smooth, Nikki, real smooth. You’re no Keith Stone.

In West Palm Beach, Florida, Rosa, Paige, Alicia, Mandy, and Eva arrive at “Total Intensity,” which is apparently a makeup company that WWE is partnering with for a new line of cosmetics. Hopefully they don’t test their products on animals, or Brie Bella is going to be pissed and we’re going to have a three episode story arc about it. Everybody puts on lab coats and hairnets so that they can see how the products are made. In the midst of the tour, Mandy pulls Alicia aside and asks her why everybody hates Eva Marie. Fox doesn’t really answer the question but puts Mandy on notice that Eva might not be the best person to hitch her wagon to. The visit to the cosmetics manufacturer goes nowhere, so this appears to have been pure product placement, nothing more.

Back in Florida, Nattie makes amends with her husband by inviting him to their backyard for a picnic. She apologizes for her actions throughout the course of the episode, and he accepts it, reassuring her that he’ll tell her if there is something wrong with him.

Overall: I’m not sure what to say about this show anymore. I’ve been watching it for four seasons and change now, and I feel like I’ve pointed out just about every flaw that you can with the product, because it’s clear that they’re not going to be changing their format anytime soon. If anything, Total Divas is more of a chore to watch now because, when it first started, things were so stupid and so poorly put together in a novel manner that I could rant through a review pretty easily and even enjoy it somewhat. Now, though, we’ve seen it all before, so it’s neither novel nor infuriating. It’s just the same old big dumb show.